[Bumped July 2025, due to news of a potential U-M football game in Germany in 2026. Originally posted in December 2008]: ‘A unique, well-traveled piece of Michigan athletics memorabilia showed up on eBay this week. It’s described to be a ticket stub from a game between Michigan baseball and a university team from Tokyo, played in Japan in 1932. At first glance, I laughed, thinking there was no way a college team traveled to Japan during the throes of the Great Depression to play baseball. And the auction description didn’t help sell it for me: 1932 Michigan University vs Meiji University tour ticket stub from game 1 played at Jingu Stadium in Tokyo. According to an excellent summary published in Michigan Today in 1998, the story began with Japanese teams conducting a college tour in the US years earlier, with many of the stops in Ann Arbor from 1911 to 1925. Then, in 1929, Michigan coach Ray Fisher received an invitation from Meiji University, inviting the maize and blue to visit Japan as “ambassadors of goodwill.” Fielding Yost and the board of athletics approved the trip, and so they headed west, then more west, until they reached the Far East in 1929: The stub in the eBay auction claims the ticket to be from the 1932 trip, which per the…